Nursing Homes Push Arbitration, Reduce Lawsuits

Nursing homes, stung by some big jury verdicts in the late 1990s, have been pushing residents to waive their rights to sue and arbitrate disputes instead.

Now the average cost per claim against nursing homes is falling, but some critics are suggesting the industry takes it too far in some cases, the WSJ reports.

In one jury case, $83 million was awarded in the death of a Texas woman with infected bedsores. The judgment, later lowered to $56 million, was one of several that prompted some nursing homes to start having new residents sign contracts agreeing to take any future disputes to arbitration, rather than to court. Arbitrators are seen as less likely than juries to award large punitive damages.

But the agreements are sometimes signed by residents who suffer from frequent confusion. Some patients “really are not in an appropriate state of mind to evaluate an agreement like an arbitration clause,” Eric Tuchmann, general counsel for the American Arbitration Association, tells the WSJ. The group, which is the largest provider of arbitration services, discourages agreements that require arbitration in nursing home cases.

This week, two senators introduced a bill that would prohibit nursing homes from using contracts that require residents to agree, before any dispute arises, to waive their right to sue.

I am not a lawyer. That said, isn't there a doctrine that contracts signed under coercion are not binding?

What could be more coercive than being [by definition] unable to care for yourself and being forced to sign away your option for legal recourse?

Yes, ALL contracts involve some level of giving things up. I give up something, you give up something and we both hope we'll be better off for having done so. That is business. But, Frickin Joke, it seems that people who can't walk or breathe are without any option except dying if they don't agree to arbitration.